Monday, May 29, 2006

Bank Holiday Monday

Phew...its 3pm and already we've packed loads in! We were away on Saturday & Sunday visiting Colleen and getting into argumets about wormeries.

She thinks I shouldn't waste my money but I see it as helping the environment! I think she felt pretty bad about it in the end and offered to buy it me for my birthday...politely declined (as its expensive) but I'll definitely be putting the money towards it. I don't know whether I should wait until my birthday or get it now....

Anyway back to today...we were supposed to be looking at bathrooms but we've decided that as we haven't confirmed the man yet it might be premature to buy a new suite in the B&Q sale! Instead we went to see Xmen : The Last Stand and it was great! Usually I end up seeing spoilers for films and ruin the endings but I didn't this time and it was great! I won't spoil anything by writing about it here but it really was a great film. I think that because I'd been hearing mixed reviews I went in with lower expectations which helped.

After much toing & froing my XBOX is going back and I'll be getting a refund...had decided to forego getting a replacement until I'd cleared some of my game backlog but then saw a brand new one in Game for £80! So now I have a new XBOX and my game pile has suddenly got much larger!

Fortunately K is watching Diagnosis Murder at the moment so it means that I get chance to update my blog when i would otherwise be playing videogames. In a way its good that we only have 1 TV in the house...means we tend to do things together instead of one person in one room and one in another!

Better go as I can probably squeeze in some Animal Crossing before the XBOX gets set up!

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Man of Steel!

Your results:
You are Superman
























Superman
85%
Green Lantern
65%
Iron Man
50%
Supergirl
50%
The Flash
45%
Batman
45%
Spider-Man
40%
Wonder Woman
40%
Robin
37%
Hulk
35%
Catwoman
20%
You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.


Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Argjghgh!

Work is nightmarish at the moment. Spent all monday desparately trying to ru reports because all tuesday I was in Fleet (3 hours there, full day 3 hours back). Got into an argument with my department head in a meeting when I actually agreed with him but was trying to point out the flaw in a plan that had been put into place.

Yesterday was at Brentwood discovering that something I'm expected to do is in fact impossible to do (although meeting the person that helped me realise this was a highlight, another person doing the same crap I do and knowing that she'll be in BT for the next 30 years because its too damn cushy!)

Today was just long...had a fall out with another general manager and exchanged snipy comments over email. Also expecting department head to drown us in requests for reports my boss has already sent him before he went on leave...added to that I need to finish my actual routine work and some of next week's as well as I'm off for 3 days!

The good news is that the XBOX seller has agreed to give me a refund so I just need to parcel up and post. In a way its been good as I'm hoping to finish Metroid Prime 2 before I get a replacement XBOX. Not sure where I'm going to get it from though...I may just bite the bullet and buy a new one...less hassle methinks although due to the fact I didn't win my award I may have to spend some bathroom-earmarked-bonus to do it.

Bong!

Some people are just too damn talented!

Monday, May 22, 2006

Bum!

My eBay XBOX arrived and worked for 10 minutes before refusing to read any discs! Waiting to see how the seller responds to my poilte enquiry...

I reckon I'll be going for my money back...eitehr the seller has sold me a duff product or their courier broke it in transit. Either way I think I want my dosh back...I only hope they are going to be reasonable...I don't want to leave arsey feedback and lose my £60!

Good Food Summer Festival

Had a great time at the above mentioned event despite turning up late and my dad falling asleep at the show. It kicked off with Gordon Ramsay in fine form and us discovering that he doesn't just swear for the camera!

Managed to eat and drink a lot and thought I'd share some of the highlights of the show (also known as the stalls that I remembered to get fliers from!)

Sammy's Couscous : Almost the first thing we had to eat (but not the first stall, most of the initial ones were alcohol based!) and subsequently purchased. Not really sure why to be honest. The cupboard at home is now bursting with extra couscous. It must have been the desire ot spend money I guess.

Cusquena : The only beer I tried at the show and surprisingly I really like it! I've going to use the six pack I bought to train myself to like beer. I'm sure it's just an acquired taste. Never again will I need to order a VAT or a wine in a bar!

Jewel Isle Rum Punch: Surprisingly strong beverage that looks like an alcopop! Reminds me of my honeymoon in St. Lucia where we went on an excursion and strated drinking very strong rum punch only to realise it was only 9.15am in the morning!

Revive Power Paste: Wonder cleaner that Kath really likes...watched the whole presentation because we didn't want to stop teh man mid flow to say that we'd bought the stuff before and was going to buy it again anyway!

Thatcher's Cider: Missed out on buying some lovely cider because I didn't want to carry it around...must remember to buy some from their website.

Fatboy BeanBag: The show tickets got us free entry to BBC GoodHomes Live It! exhibition and these caught my eye. Surprisingly comfy and expensive and its only because we don't have space that I stopped myself buying one. Almost the only good thing in the Live It! show that seemed to want us to buy property abroad and not much else!

Dickinson & Morris Pork Pie: Mail order pork pie! Brilliant (and tasty!)

Toffoc: There seemed to be an over representation of welsh liquer drinks at the show...this one was pretty tasty but you could probably make it yourself.

Greek Yoghurt & Honey Ice-cream: Now I don't like honey or greek yoghurt but together and cold this was a real treat!

Rose Wine: This man did a lovely tasting session...we basically stood round for 20 minutes drinking 6 different rose wines and getting a history of the region of origin and some insight into wine making!

Snowdonia Cheese: Wales again, but they can be forgive for a lovely selection of cheese...4 of which are sat in my fridge as I type...Pickled Onion cheese? Yes please. Stem ginger cheese? Why thank you!

The show was sadly lacking in BBQs of any shape or from so I picked up my dream BBQ at the gareden centre when we got back....now we just need some good weather!

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Samus

Managed to get into Metroid prime 2 and am working my way through it at a fair old lick. Good job as my Xbox is sat in a DHL warehouse and will be collected tomorrow...and then its bye bye Samus until I get tired of Halo 2 & Jade Empire...and I still need to do the proper shopping as well...see my previous post on Lidl!

Lidl

Now I didn't think anything could be worse than Asda in terms of white trashiness but I've found it...Lidl! Just tried to do the week's shopping in there and was expecing it to be quirky, cheap and interesting. Instead I found it to be awful. From my list I managed to get juice and butter, that's it! The fruit and veg section was non-existent and it was full of pikey people!

I do realise I'm a snob...I just can't help it...

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Samus & Pork Pies

You ever have those days at work where you set yourself a goal only to know that you probably won’t achieve it and it won’t matter and you only set the goal to stop you browsing the internet all day anyway?

The work I do contains a bit of ‘black magic’ i.e. stuff that only I understand or can do…this means sometimes you can get away with not doing as much as you should and still appearing to be a miracle worker. Hey, if it worked for Scotty!

Despite this I did manage to complete the thing I'd set for myself so it wasn't all bad....

I’ve also discovered that I really like pork pie. Ask me a week ago and I’d have said “No thanks, greasy pastry, nasty meat and too much jelly” but now I’d be “Yes please…have you got any more?” Still not too keen on the jelly but the meat is tasty and very savoury, the pastry is lovely and the overall experience is a good one. Morrison’s snack pork pies have only fuelled this further and I keep thinking of them when I should be working.

Further to my post yesterday I have made an effort to get re-acquainted with Samus Aran by playing Metroid Prime 2. I had already started this game but decided that as I was only 6 hours in to start a new game. Enjoying it so far and hopefully will get enthused enough to finish it this time. Well at least until my Xbox arrives. Annoyingly there has still been no contact with the seller despite me having already paid so it may be a while before I get it…which is a shame as I’ve already received 2 games from Amazon for it!

K is away tonight so my routine is likely to be all over the shop. I didn’t realise how much of a routine I had until K is not there. There’ll be no reason for me to have dinner at 6.30pm because that’s when K gets home. Last night she was at a course so I didn’t really have a meal…I just had pork pies, cereal and toast spread over a couple of hours. Perhaps I will make a meal tonight…we’ve got enough veg to use up!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Ooooops!

eBay can be a very dangerous thing….Sunday night I was suffering through the post-E3 drought of information and was starting to think what a good idea it would be to get an Xbox 360. Some of the games coming for it look great. Oblivion, Mass Effect and Gears of War look brilliant. A reality check later says that it’s not a good idea to spend £300 on a console for only 1 game that is currently available.

My mind then strayed to the Xbox. Not really the most attractive of consoles aesthetically but well into its life and there are some great looking games. I watched some video reviews over on IGN (Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2 & Jade Empire) and started to get excited about the types of games I could get on an Xbox that I don’t own.

I happened to visit eBay and noticed that there was a second-hand Xbox for sale for £45 with a reserve and lots of bids. Not thinking that my bid would be the highest one or would meet the reserve I plonked down a bid of £50. Hmm so now I’ve got the current winning bid that HAS met the reserve and there only appears to be 16 minutes left on the auction (and its 11:30pm). Needless to say I won the auction and emboldened by this I ordered a couple of Xbox games from Amazon. My only problems now are realising that I didn’t have quite as much money left in my account as I thought (fingers crossed I’ll win my GS Award for Excellence) so I’m going to have a lean couple of weeks, the fact that a hulking great Xbox isn’t going to fit into my sleek entertainment centre (guffaw!) and that I don’t know when I’m actually going to play the thing!

I really do have to focus on completing games before I buy any others….currently waiting in my uncompleted stack are….

Baiten Kaitos (GC)
Metroid Prime 2 (GC)
Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (GC)
Xmen Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (GC)
Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls (GBA)
Sonic Rush (DS)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Trauma Center: Under the Knife (DS)
Metroid Prime Hunters (DS)
Ultimate Spiderman (DS)
Kirby: Power Paintbrush (DS)
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (DS)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)

Soon to be added are Jade Empire & Halo 2…oh the joy! And this list doesn’t include games that I still play but don’t require ’finishing’ like Tetris DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Meteos. In preparation I’ve been spending only a brief amount of time in my village each day and cracking on with Phoenix Wright. Finished Chapter 4 last night and only have one chapter left! The last chapter took K ages if I remember rightly *sigh*.

The problem is there are games coming on the horizon that I might just have to buy….Super Princess Peach, Brain Age, Chibi-Robo, and New SUPER MARIO BROS all come in the next couple of months. Added to which its summer and I should be making the most of it!

Thankfully K has been thoughtful and managed to be out for the next couple of evenings so I’ll have some free time to fill with gaming goodness. Although I tend to enjoy games less when I’m forced to complete them! The spell World of Warcraft had on me has thankfully waned, I know if I log in again I’ll be drawn back so I’ve done the sensible thing and cancelled my subscription! I am now saving £8.99 a month and can concentrate on the rest of my list!

On a completely unrelated subject K and I got parts in the upcoming shows we’re doing. I’ll be playing Edwin and K is the interestingly titled ‘Groupie’.

Also we go to the BBC Good Food Summer Food Festival on Friday with my parents. This is handy as they’ll be driving so that I can get sloshed on free wine! I’ll be on the lookout for a new BBQ and because we’ll be in the car I can buy loads of stuff that I wouldn’t usually be able to carry! Hooray! I’m actually slightly surprised that my Dad is still coming. Usually something (work or golf) comes up which scuppers any plans. Not this time it seems. Although he is managing to get in a game on Thursday night when we’re driving over…I’ll not repeat what K said when she found out Dad was going to be at the golf course on Thursday night (mainly because I can’t really remember what she said, only that it was funny!)

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Well worth the effort!


FSCN1987
Originally uploaded by Leighbob.
Going to the trouble of making a stake for K to be tied to was well worth it....that alon with our other costume bits and pieces and we had a great time! Obviously it was good to see everyone else and their costume efforts as well!

Now I'm very tired so I'm going to play some video games and hopefully have a nap!

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

It's over

Well K is on the train after her exam and sounding well relieved! Afetr all the revision and study days this past month I know she's well and truly fed up of exams! I'm sure she'll have done great , so we just need to sit back and wait for the results to come.

We're also waiting for the results of the auditions for the upcoming shows we're doing...long old evening with a scarily few amount of men auditioning but hopefully thy'll pick up a few more before rehearsals start. We should find out any day now.

E3 is in full swing as well and I enjoyed watching the Nintendo conference live on the internet. Wii will only be the second console I will be buying at launch! I got a DS even before they came out in teh UK but I'll be pre-ordering a Wii just as soon as we know when the damn thing is going to be released. I guess that's the beauty of savings and having spare disposable income! I know a lot of people have been going on about the graphics but I can't remember any game I've bought because the graphics were good. Sure graphics can help but I'd rather have something that is enjoyable to play. Super Mario Galaxy looks ace as do a lot of the other games on show. Hopefully once the journalists get out and play some of them we'll get a proper feel for what its gonna be like.

I'm hoping it'll be a chance to get more peoeple I know hooked on games but we'll have to wait and see.

Had a frantic day and ended up staying late but in the end it was quite good because it meant I felt like I achieved something. We're in a down cycle and I can't get motivated to do the long list of stuff that needs doing but isn't really that important.

I also need to do some stuff to get together our costumes for the fancy dress party we're going to at the weekend. The theme is heroes & villains but we're doing somethign a little different that what I expect everybody else is doing. The real reaosn behind this is we've left it woefully late to get proper hero/villain costumes so we're going to have to make do.....it should be good though. I just hope I don't have to explain to everyone what K and I are....

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Damn good read

Finished To Kill A Mocking Bird a few days ago (memo to self: remove it from my links). That was a great book! There are books hanging around that I just don't seem to have read and I'm always suprised when I read them juts how good they are. TKAMB is one of them. Great story, excellent dialogue and the ability to make you feel like you're there....highly recommended.

Just attacking my book pile and reading the latest Kathy Reich paperback, cross bones, next. Nice spaced out big writing so I should be finished in no time.

Waterloo is starting to drive me crazy...the animals cleared out my house at the flea market yesterday and it now looks bare and empty. My whole town seems like an orchard and I'm finding it hard to keep on top of selling all the fruit. As well as this I've managed to pay off another mortgage and now have an extra room to contend with...not sure how I should deck my pad out...am tempted to sell everything I own and start from scratch with partial sets of furniture...keeping only the stuff I can't buy anywhere else (my mario pipe and animal pics for example). Also need to expand my museum collection so better get fishing! *sigh*

Also played my first few games on Metroid Prime Hunters WiFi...needless to say I sucked big stylee...must practise more....

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Heady days of summer

We've just enjoyed a few days on sunshine and it made me remember how much I like it in thsi country when the sun is out!

If only we could have a guaranteed 4 weeks of sunny weather each year then no-one would need to go abroad on holiday. This country is full of great places which are REALLY great when the sun's shining and not that great when its pissing down with rain....like it is now. Although since its late I'm not too bothered.

Fortunately the rain held off for K and her sister and aunt when they ran 5km for Cancer Research this afternoon. They even managed it in a respectable 41 mins...I was very impressed! Well done!

Did something foolish a few days ago and now I have yet another brand new game in my DS pile to play...Metroid Prime:Hunters.

Also starting to get quite excited as E3 is coming around this week. This is where the video game world goes crazy and we get to see a load of new cool stuff. Nintendo should finally be revealing its games for Wii and hopefully we'll see a load of new stuff for DS as well.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Not bad, as bank holidays go...

Even though we didn't really do anything, it didn't feel like a total wash out!

The weather was even good enough to finish off my planting and chnage the exterior light fitting. Now the light sill doesn't work but at least it looks classy! Since the other fitting had rusted shut and the bulb had blown we assumed that chnaging the whole lot would fix it. We were even lucky enough to pick a new fitting by the same manufacturer which meant I didn't need to drill new holes in the brickwork. Wired it all up correctly....I think, but still no light. Will need to get Tricky the electronical engineer to come and have a look!

Popped into town today and managed to buy 8 paperback books! Well I have just been paid and it was better than buying a single pair of jeans for £60! I managed to pick up Ultimate Spiderman for the DS for £15 too...not bad.

Had an enjoyable lunch at the Food Company shop in Marks Tey and bought 3 small items and it came to a tenner! That shop is pricey but nice. Spent the rest of the day baking and have got a lovely lemon curd sponge wth 2 jars of curd left over for another day. Brill!

Back to work tomorrow but it's only a 4 day week so it can't be all bad.